Trout to Manage Northwood Plaza

By Larry Perl

Like a new sheriff in town, Jerome "Jerry" Trout III has been hired to provide security and other property management services at Northwood Plaza, a once-proud shopping center where Baltimore City Councilman Ken Harris was killed in a robbery last year.

Trout, of Roland Park, is a principal of Trout Management, the management arm of the commercial real estate company Trout Daniel & Associates, of which he is also a principal. Trout Management manages retail space throughout the mid-Atlantic area.

Trout said the Ben Schuster family, which owns the retail portion of Northwood Plaza, has called him in to manage the property, which previously was self-managed, including in September 2008, when Harris' slaying spurred accusations from elected officials and community leaders of lax security and poor management.

But Trout said security is not the family's bailiwick.

"It's not their profession," he said in an interview last week.

Trout wouldn't elaborate on what new security measures are planned at the center, saying, "We're reviewing what's there. There already are security measures," he said. "It's premature to make any grand plans."

In a news release, Trout extolled the potential of the more-than-40-year-old center at 1570 Havenwood Road, near Loch Raven Boulevard, which was a magnet for shoppers from north Baltimore in the 1960s and '70s.

"We are proud to be playing a formal role in maximizing Northwood's potential as a shopping destination for residents and an attractive place for retailers to do business," the release quoted Trout as saying.

The hiring of Trout was not lost on elected officials. In the same news release, Robert Curran, the city councilman who represents the area, was quoted as saying that "As a 50-year resident of Northwood and a frequent patron of Northwood Plaza shopping center, I am pleased that Trout Daniel is now handling the management of the center."

But in the interview, Trout said a lot depends on what Morgan State University does with the piece of Northwood Plaza it owns on the east side of the shopping center -- an old Hecht's department store, which later became a Hechinger's home improvement store and a Burlington Coat Factory.

The Daily Record reported in 2007 that Morgan State wanted to expand its business school and hospitality management program and was planning to demolish the vacant building and build a hotel, a conference center and new space for the university's Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management.

The newspaper quoted spokesman Clinton Coleman as saying the university was also working on a partnership with a "leading hotel chain" to co-develop the hotel.

But to date, nothing has come of those plans.

"Things are still up in the air, being assessed," said Kelvin Jenkins, another university spokesman.

"Since the recession and the economy have taken a turn for the worse, that has been placed on hold," Jenkins said.

That could complicate any plans by the Schuster family to upgrade the retail portion of the plaza, which once had its own movie theater and a rooftop restaurant, besides Hecht's.

The caliber of Northwood Plaza's stores has declined in recent years. Now its anchors include a Rite-Aid drug store, a Save-A-Lot supermarket, a nail salon, a Rent-A-Center, Sunny's Sub Shop, a McDonald's, a BP gas station and a Foot Locker shoe store.

Its best-known business is The Haven, a legendary jazz club. But now, The Haven is best known to many people as the site where Harris was shot while trying to run to his car to escape robbers.

Baltimore City has backed conceptual plans by community leaders to redevelop the shopping center as a higher-end housing and retail complex.

"It's a great, great plan, and it's time to put some emphasis over there," Mayor Sheila Dixon said after a meeting of area community leaders in April 2008 at Morgan State to hear preliminary proposals for the center.

Plans developed by the Neighborhood Design Center, based on community meetings and Internet surveys call for total redevelopment of the plaza with upscale shops and expanded grocery options, residential units and green space.

But those plans haven't gone anywhere either.

Trout said the retail portion could become more upscale if a big anchor, like a hotel, was found for the Hecht's site.

"The retail would bounce back," he said, adding that conceivably it could become a retail complex for Morgan State students, as stores on Charles and St. Paul streets in Charles Village are for Johns Hopkins University students.

But Trout said that, as far as development is concerned, he and the shopping center owners are at the mercy of Morgan State and are "heavily reliant on what's going to be happening next door. You can't put (in) fancy stores without the right anchor.

"There's no question it's in everybody's interests to make it a healthy retail mix. But we have to do what they want to do," Trout said.

This article was originally published in the Baltimore Messenger.

About Trout Management
Trout Management manages thousands of square feet of retail space throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Their scope of work ranges from free-standing buildings and office space to large big-box retail centers.